Speaker 1: A warning for listeners, this episode contains discussion of child's
Speaker 1: sexual abuse. Please listen with caution and care. In the
Speaker 1: summer of two thousand and one, Lreinda Swain was a
Speaker 1: forty year old single mother of two living in Union City, Michigan.
Speaker 1: She had just completed a three month jail term for
Speaker 1: a drug charge and was back home on parole. Larinda
Speaker 1: was looking forward to seeing her boys, Ronnie and Cody,
Speaker 1: who had been living with their father while she was
Speaker 1: in jail. She'd been trying to reach her ex husband
Speaker 1: to arrange it, but he hadn't returned any of her calls.
Speaker 1: Larinda was relaxing in the bathtub at her parents' farmhouse
Speaker 1: when there was a knock at the door.
Speaker 2: And so my dad tells that the police are there.
Speaker 2: I figured the cops was here there, and they're likes
Speaker 2: trying to say I threatened them about having visitation, But.
Speaker 1: It was much more serious than that.
Speaker 2: When I tell people that I was sentenced twenty five
Speaker 2: to fifty years, they automatically assumed that I was accused
Speaker 2: of murder, and I always tell them, no, I was
Speaker 2: accused of worse than that.
Speaker 1: From love of for good, This is wrongful conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling today Larenda Swain. Lorenda Swain was born in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty in Hamilton, Ohio. The family later moved to Michigan.
Speaker 1: She was the middle child of six.
Speaker 2: I've always heard that that's a bad place to be,
Speaker 2: you know, But to be honest, my siblings, if you
Speaker 2: had to ask every one of them who they're the
Speaker 2: closest to, it would probably be me. So I like
Speaker 2: to be in the middle child. I had the very
Speaker 2: loving parents, George and Fay. They've been married sixty eight years.
Speaker 2: My dad was a two on die maker. My mother
Speaker 2: was like a homemaker till we were all in school, and.
Speaker 3: Then she got a job so that we could buy
Speaker 3: a farm.
Speaker 1: Laarinda admits that as a child she had some unusual hobbies.
Speaker 2: I was the cleaner out of the family. I had
Speaker 2: to cook and clean, and when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: I would like, you know, stay up all night and
Speaker 2: clean the silver drawers.
Speaker 1: But she also enjoyed more typical kid things well.
Speaker 2: I had a good childhood. I liked sports. We camped
Speaker 2: and fished. My mom always took us to Saltaban and
Speaker 2: we'd get cherries.
Speaker 3: And ice cream on the way a lot of my
Speaker 3: life felt very lucky to be me.
Speaker 1: When she was a teenager, the family moved to a
Speaker 1: farm in Burlington, about forty miles away. Before long, Larinda
Speaker 1: fell for someone and they started a serious relationship. She
Speaker 1: was seventeen, he was twenty seven. They moved in together
Speaker 1: a year later.
Speaker 2: Living together back then was like a big deal and
Speaker 2: my parents were like, you know, we'll design you. And
Speaker 2: the next week they were like at my house and
Speaker 2: loved my husband. And I lived there like maybe two
Speaker 2: years before we got married. And then I was married
Speaker 2: to him for seven years.
Speaker 1: But that marriage didn't work out, and at twenty eight,
Speaker 1: Lorenda found herself in transition, about to be divorced, living
Speaker 1: in Union City, Michigan, and working at a local Italian restaurant.
Speaker 1: And that is where she met Ronald Swain.
Speaker 2: I slipped on a piece of ice cleaning up the
Speaker 2: salad bar Italian pasta bar, and ron you know, came
Speaker 2: to rescue me and I met him, And to be honest,
Speaker 2: I you know, like I said, I was getting a
Speaker 2: divorce from my first marriage, and I ended up having
Speaker 2: to worry if.
Speaker 3: My divorce was going to be final before we got married.
Speaker 1: Ron was sixteen years older than Lorenda, and as she
Speaker 1: describes him, he was handsome enough to be a movie star.
Speaker 1: He already had a daughter and just says he was
Speaker 1: a good dad. She looked forward to starting a family
Speaker 1: with him.
Speaker 2: I used to love kids more than anybody in the
Speaker 2: entire world. I'm talking nieces and nephews. Prior to having
Speaker 2: my own children. We tried twice to have a test
Speaker 2: two baby and it didn't work. So we ended up
Speaker 2: getting into foster care and adopting.
Speaker 1: They adopted two boys, Ronnie and Cody Joe, who were
Speaker 1: thirteen months apart.
Speaker 2: They brought me a lot of joy, they did. I
Speaker 2: loved them and I was so happy being a mom.
Speaker 2: I was so I spoiled them. They brought me so
Speaker 2: much joy.
Speaker 4: Oh, she was the Ulliman mother.
Speaker 1: This is George Johnson, Lorenda's father.
Speaker 4: She loved them, ever loved her child.
Speaker 5: But she couldn't have children, and so where she got
Speaker 5: to adopt these two bull boys.
Speaker 4: It was like a guest from God, you know, worship
Speaker 4: them boys.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately ron didn't feel the same about the children.
Speaker 3: Lorenda says, they didn't make him happy.
Speaker 2: And you know, so you know, the marriage didn't work out,
Speaker 2: and I think they were like five and six, maybe
Speaker 2: four and five. When we got divorced. I had the
Speaker 2: custody and he hardly visited. You know, he got to
Speaker 2: claim him for taxes as long as he was current
Speaker 2: on support, and he didn't even come and visit home,
Speaker 2: or you know, is.
Speaker 4: This her the two boys as their family now?
Speaker 5: She really pleased that she was the mother and the
Speaker 5: father and they wasn't going to be short changed in
Speaker 5: any way.
Speaker 1: But still being a single parent wasn't easy. Lorenda says,
Speaker 1: before long, things in her life started to go downhill.
Speaker 1: She found a new boyfriend who turned out to be violent,
Speaker 1: and he introduced her to hard drugs.
Speaker 2: And that's what I'm guilty of, is that I made
Speaker 2: a bad choice.
Speaker 3: I did use crack.
Speaker 2: I did I was depressed, and you know, maybe that's
Speaker 2: just an excuse whatever. I never even knew what it
Speaker 2: was and sure didn't plan it, and it's one of
Speaker 2: my deepest regrets, but it's you know, I can't change it.
Speaker 1: After she got out of that relationship, Lorenda got back
Speaker 1: on her feet. Her living situation got more stable, and
Speaker 1: she began to feel like she and the boys were
Speaker 1: doing okay.
Speaker 2: I was living with a boyfriend that I did treework
Speaker 2: for in my parents one of their rental properties. They
Speaker 2: had more than one, and I would move there and
Speaker 2: I would like fix it up, landscape, clean the yard,
Speaker 2: clean the house. That great, and then they would get
Speaker 2: me to move to another. We'll get Larna to move
Speaker 2: there because she'll fix it up.
Speaker 1: But then Lorenda made another bad choice. She stole one
Speaker 1: of her parents' credit cards and used it to score drugs.
Speaker 4: She got it, maxed it out, maxed it out overnight.
Speaker 2: My parents didn't prosecute, but I got probation. I had
Speaker 2: no criminal history prior to this.
Speaker 1: Lorenda wasn't incarcerated, but she was on parole and she
Speaker 1: couldn't kick old habits.
Speaker 2: I did go back out news and my dad loved
Speaker 2: me and was so worried.
Speaker 3: About me that he turned me in.
Speaker 2: He wanted me to go to jail because he was
Speaker 2: afraid if I didn't that I was going to get killed.
Speaker 3: You know, doing drugs.
Speaker 5: Well that was really the We got to do something,
Speaker 5: and you steal from your parents, that's about as low
Speaker 5: as you can get, you know. And we worked with
Speaker 5: her all along, but at that point, somebody else had
Speaker 5: to help her.
Speaker 4: I wasn't able to do it.
Speaker 1: Lorendo was sent to prison on the drug violation for
Speaker 1: ninety days, and while she was there, Ronnie and Cody
Speaker 1: were in the custody of their dad and his new
Speaker 1: wife Lynn. When Lorendo was released in August of two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, she was still on probation and had
Speaker 1: to wear an ankle monitor. She wasted no time trying
Speaker 1: to contact ron to see her children.
Speaker 2: And my husband wouldn't answer the phone or whatever, and
Speaker 2: I just told that, Hey, if you don't get a
Speaker 2: hold of me by Friday, you'll be in contempt at court.
Speaker 1: A couple of days later, Lorinda was at her parents' farm.
Speaker 2: I'm actually in the bathtub with my leg up on
Speaker 2: the side of the tub with a plastic bag around
Speaker 2: it because back then you couldn't get the tethers wet.
Speaker 2: And so my dad tells that the police are there.
Speaker 2: I figured the cops w was be there, and they're
Speaker 2: like trying to say I threatened them about having visitation, but.
Speaker 1: It wasn't about the visitation at all. The police were
Speaker 1: there to take Lorenda in. She had been accused of
Speaker 1: committing an unimaginable crime, and.
Speaker 6: So can you walk us through what happened in this case?
Speaker 6: Not necessarily the prosecution theory, but what happened.
Speaker 7: Ronnie, who was the older son, who by this point
Speaker 7: was about fourteen years old, was caught by his stepmother
Speaker 7: committing sexual misconduct with a relative.
Speaker 1: This is Dave Moran. He's the co director and co
Speaker 1: founder of the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of
Speaker 1: Michigan Law School.
Speaker 7: And the stepmother apparently suggested to Ronnie that he must
Speaker 7: have learned that from someone else, and Ronnie then implicated
Speaker 7: Lorenda and claimed that Lorenda had performed oral sex on him.
Speaker 1: According to the allegations, this had all happened years before,
Speaker 1: when Ronnie was about seven.
Speaker 7: Many many times, in fact, every day before catching the
Speaker 7: school bus. According to Ronnie, Lorenda pulled down his pants
Speaker 7: and performed oral sex on him.
Speaker 2: Ronnie was the most honest kid. So when they first
Speaker 2: accused me of it down at the jail halls, after
Speaker 2: they've picked me up at my parents' firm, I told
Speaker 2: the guy, I don't believe Ronnie said that. He said
Speaker 2: I witnessed Ronnie said, I said, well, then he's a
Speaker 2: goddamn liar, because I said, I never dreamed of doing that.
Speaker 4: Oh, I know she didn't do it. I know she
Speaker 4: didn't do it the way she loved them Rayne don't
Speaker 4: Wayne Hill, and she harmed up boys like something like that.
Speaker 1: But based on Ronnie's allegation alone, Lorenda was arrested and
Speaker 1: charged with sexually molesting her oldest son. The trial was
Speaker 1: scheduled for the following August, and then soon after his
Speaker 1: mother was arrested, Ronnie confessed that the story was a lie.
Speaker 1: It would be the first of many times that he
Speaker 1: tried to recant.
Speaker 2: The first time he recranted, my dad and my sister
Speaker 2: and my nephew went with a.
Speaker 3: Tape recorder thing.
Speaker 2: And asked if they, you know, he would talk to him,
Speaker 2: and he agreed to you know.
Speaker 4: I asked him, what on earth did you? You know? What?
Speaker 4: What's sadil? And me it wasn't true.
Speaker 2: Then they called the other grandma, his birth grandma, and
Speaker 2: he admitted to her that I didn't do it, And
Speaker 2: he admitted to my parents that I didn't do it,
Speaker 2: and my dad had it on tape.
Speaker 1: But those tapes were never introduced at trial by Lorenda's defense.
Speaker 2: My lawyer just counted on Ronnie telling the truth, and
Speaker 2: that was when I realized at the trial, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be found guilty.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. You can
Speaker 1: listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts
Speaker 1: one week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava
Speaker 1: for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Lorenda's trial began in
Speaker 1: August of two thousand and two in Calhoun County, Michigan.
Speaker 1: The primary witnesses for the prosecution were Ronnie, who was
Speaker 1: now fifteen, and his younger brother, Cody, who was fourteen.
Speaker 7: Cody didn't implicate her directly in any kind of sexual misconduct,
Speaker 7: but just kind of backed up that she supposedly had
Speaker 7: behaved inappropriately. Then you had the stepmother testifying about what
Speaker 7: Ronnie had told her, and that was pretty much. Yet
Speaker 7: the prosecution didn't really have any other substantial witnesses.
Speaker 1: The story worry that the jury heard from Ronnie and
Speaker 1: Cody at trial went like this.
Speaker 7: The allegations were quite specific, namely that for this period
Speaker 7: of several years, Lorenda would get the boys up and
Speaker 7: get them ready for school, and then she would send
Speaker 7: the younger son, Cody out to wait for the school bus,
Speaker 7: and then she would molest Ronnie, and then Cody would
Speaker 7: come running down the driveway to alert everybody that the
Speaker 7: school bus was coming. And then Lorenda would pull up
Speaker 7: Ronnie's pants and send them out there to join Cody
Speaker 7: and catch the bus.
Speaker 3: No kid ever waited out there alone.
Speaker 2: They usually were watching cartoons, eating fruit roll ups, and
Speaker 2: when I see the bus coming, I'd had to hurry
Speaker 2: and get them to go run out to the end
Speaker 2: of the driveway. You know what I'm saying. No one
Speaker 2: kid ever sat out there by himself.
Speaker 7: And so Lorenda at her trial, she didn't have a
Speaker 7: very good lawyer, but she tried to assert the defenses herself,
Speaker 7: and so at one point while she was testifying, she
Speaker 7: blurted out, the story is not true, asked the neighbor
Speaker 7: boy and the school bus driver.
Speaker 2: My lawyer should stop the trial right then, and said, look,
Speaker 2: we need to get the bus driver in. The little
Speaker 2: neighbor boy so he was telling the truth here, but
Speaker 2: he didn't do that.
Speaker 1: Instead, Lorenda's attorney was counting on Ronnie to tell the
Speaker 1: truth on the stand, but that didn't happen either.
Speaker 7: Ronnie recanted before trial, and in fact, he recanted at trial,
Speaker 7: and then he had a private conversation with a prosecutor.
Speaker 7: Then he came back in and unrecanted.
Speaker 2: My lawyer said to Ronnie three times, don't you want
Speaker 2: to tell the truth here today? The third time Ronnie
Speaker 2: started crying, the judge stopped the trial ordered everybody out
Speaker 2: of the courtroom. I knew he was crying because he
Speaker 2: knew I had never dreamed of doing anything like that.
Speaker 2: But I realized to the twelve strangers, they think he's
Speaker 2: crying because they guy really did do this.
Speaker 1: On August twentieth, two thousand and two, the jury found
Speaker 1: Lorenda guilty on all four counts of first degree criminal
Speaker 1: sexual conduct. She was sentenced to twenty five to fifty
Speaker 1: years in prison.
Speaker 2: When I was first found guilty of a crime I
Speaker 2: never dreamed of doing.
Speaker 3: I was sure.
Speaker 2: I was so naive to think that when they realized
Speaker 2: that I didn't do it, they'll tear the doors down,
Speaker 2: you know. Eventually, I knew they knew they had made
Speaker 2: a mistake, but they'd sooner appeal or fight it and
Speaker 2: not care if my family and my life is wrecked.
Speaker 2: To this day, I can't believe it was real. The
Speaker 2: whole while I was in there. I knew it was real,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't believe it was real at the same time.
Speaker 2: You know, I've done some wrong in my day, I
Speaker 2: really have, but I sure didn't do this.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 3: I said a lot in my life, I felt really
Speaker 3: lucky to be me.
Speaker 2: But when I was in a jail cell on my
Speaker 2: forty first birthday, accused of when I was accused of,
Speaker 2: I felt like the most unlucky person in the.
Speaker 3: Entire world for a very long time.
Speaker 2: You know, when I tell people that I was sentenced
Speaker 2: twenty five to fifty years, they automatically.
Speaker 3: Assumed that I was accused.
Speaker 2: Of murder, and I always tell him, no, I was
Speaker 2: accused of worse than that. You know, I would have
Speaker 2: rather been accused of killing my mom and dad than
Speaker 2: to be accused of molesting your adopted son.
Speaker 1: You know, Laurinda knew that because of the nature of
Speaker 1: the crime she was charged with, she was going to
Speaker 1: have a tough time of it in prison.
Speaker 3: People were cruel.
Speaker 2: To some people, and a lot of times it was
Speaker 2: like sexual assault people. You know, I had a couple
Speaker 2: different confrontations where one girl did say to me, you
Speaker 2: sucked your kid's dick the size of my pinky and
Speaker 2: put her pinky up and said that in my face.
Speaker 2: The thought was in my head to pick the pan
Speaker 2: up and beat her fricking brains out. But God also
Speaker 2: put the thought in my head. Sticks and stones can
Speaker 2: break your bones, but names can never harm you unless
Speaker 2: you hurt that girl.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what I drink. I smoke pot.
Speaker 2: I swear. I certainly am not a saint, but I
Speaker 2: love God. I know he's real. I'm sorry, I'm the sinner.
Speaker 2: I talked to him all the time, and when I
Speaker 2: was in prison, I was talking to him and I
Speaker 2: was even swearing at him, telling them the Bible is
Speaker 2: a damn Lie says, you don't put more on us
Speaker 2: and we can bear, and this is way more than
Speaker 2: I can bear.
Speaker 1: The Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan opened its
Speaker 1: doors in January of two thousand and nine. Dave remembers
Speaker 1: that Lorenda's was one of the first cases they took on.
Speaker 7: We took it within the first few months of the
Speaker 7: clinic being open because it came to us recommended by
Speaker 7: Bill Procter, who was an investigative journalist and then later
Speaker 7: private investigator that we knew and trusted, and we heard
Speaker 7: from Brad Edwards, another investigative journalist who'd done a story
Speaker 7: on Lorenda's case, and so after meeting Lorenda in prison,
Speaker 7: we very quickly decided to take on the case.
Speaker 6: Well, so how did you disprove it? Because that's the
Speaker 6: like what it was. It was ninety six and ninety
Speaker 6: four he said his mom was molesting him, and now
Speaker 6: you know, we're years later.
Speaker 7: So how did you Well, because we talked to Ronnie
Speaker 7: pretty early on and Cody both and they were both
Speaker 7: firm that this did not happen. That Ronnie and Cody
Speaker 7: had been manipulated by the stepmother into making these charges
Speaker 7: against Lorenda, And so that made us think that this
Speaker 7: was a wrongful conviction. But we knew that Ronnie and
Speaker 7: Cody alone couldn't do it because they had already recanted.
Speaker 7: So that wasn't going to be new evidence. We had
Speaker 7: to find new evidence, and the most obvious place to
Speaker 7: look was what Lorendo had shout out at trial. The
Speaker 7: they were kid and the school bus driver. The jury
Speaker 7: never heard from them, What about that neighbor boy, what
Speaker 7: about that school bus driver, and we found them, and
Speaker 7: the neighbor boy agreed that the Swain brothers came out
Speaker 7: every morning together and waited with him for the school bus.
Speaker 7: And then we actually found the school bus driver, and
Speaker 7: she had an amazing memory of the routes that she
Speaker 7: drove and who she picked up at each point.
Speaker 1: At a post conviction hearing before Judge Conrad, since both
Speaker 1: the neighbor and the bus driver were called as witnesses,
Speaker 1: the bus driver testified that she saw the Swain brothers
Speaker 1: waiting at the stop together every day along with the
Speaker 1: neighbor boy. She never saw Cody running to get his
Speaker 1: brother from the house.
Speaker 7: The prosecutor got up, you know, just dripping with sarcasm, like,
Speaker 7: oh yeah, sure, after all these years. You know, by
Speaker 7: this point we're close to twenty years or fifteen, twenty years,
Speaker 7: and so so the prosecutor just fell right into the
Speaker 7: trap and he said, all right, so you know, who
Speaker 7: did you pick up the stop before the Swains? And
Speaker 7: she named like two or three kids, and all right,
Speaker 7: what about what about the stop before that? She named
Speaker 7: two or three more kids. Well what about to stop
Speaker 7: after the swing kids? And she named the kids she
Speaker 7: picked up there and you could just tell the judge
Speaker 7: was utterly convinced by this veteran school bus driver with
Speaker 7: the photographic memory.
Speaker 1: And in their investigation, Dave's team had uncovered another witness,
Speaker 1: Dennis Book, who was Larinda's living boyfriend at the time
Speaker 1: of the alleged abuse.
Speaker 7: And he provided utterly crucial testimony because he was there
Speaker 7: when the boys would catch the bus, because he would
Speaker 7: leave after that to go to work, and so he
Speaker 7: could affirm that this absolutely didn't happen. And what made
Speaker 7: him such a great witness was that he absolutely hated Larinda.
Speaker 7: They had a terrible breakup. But even more crucially what
Speaker 7: he revealed is that he had been contacted by Detective Picket,
Speaker 7: who was the officer in charge of the case against Larinda,
Speaker 7: and he had told Detective Picket and know uncertain terms,
Speaker 7: you know, I detest that woman, but this absolutely didn't happen,
Speaker 7: and if it had happened, I would have turned her
Speaker 7: in myself.
Speaker 1: Knowing how much Dennis Book hated Larinda, her defense attorney
Speaker 1: never called him at trial. He was afraid that Dennis's
Speaker 1: testimony would hurt Larinda's case. An officer Pickett never revealed
Speaker 1: to the defense what Dennis Book had told him that
Speaker 1: Larinda didn't do it.
Speaker 7: And so that became a Brady violation because had the
Speaker 7: defense lawyer known what Dennis Book had told Detective Picket,
Speaker 7: then that would have changed the calculus entirely.
Speaker 8: What made him want to testify?
Speaker 7: For you guys, he didn't, especially it took several visits
Speaker 7: with him to persuade him to testify, and then of
Speaker 7: course we did subpoena him, so he actually was under
Speaker 7: legal obligation to show up. So I can imagine the
Speaker 7: person that you've had the worst breakup in your life
Speaker 7: with coming in and saying, basically, you're a terrible person,
Speaker 7: but you didn't do this. That is a credible witness.
Speaker 1: In August of two thousand and nine, as a result
Speaker 1: of the new evidence, Judge sent granted Larinda a new
Speaker 1: trial and she was released on bond.
Speaker 2: When I was in prison, I watched two sets of Olympics,
Speaker 2: and I used to think the closest thing I'd ever
Speaker 2: feel to what they must feel when they touch that
Speaker 2: pool first or cross that finish line, would be if
Speaker 2: my name was cleared and I got justice.
Speaker 3: Well, it felt good leaving there. August fifth, o nine
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 2: Thought, I'm going to know what it feels like to
Speaker 2: be the Olympic athlete in six months to a year.
Speaker 3: For sure, that's what it looked like.
Speaker 1: But Loreinda's journey wasn't over when she was released on bond.
Speaker 7: And then the case though, lingered for another seven years
Speaker 7: from that point for us trying to, you know, finalize
Speaker 7: the victory, and it kept going up and down the
Speaker 7: appellate chain, and we would lose rounds and then we'd
Speaker 7: win around, and the prosecution, when we'd lose around would
Speaker 7: move to send her back to prison. So we have
Speaker 7: to go back to the trial judge and try and
Speaker 7: keep her out of prison.
Speaker 2: I had no idea it was going to be seven
Speaker 2: more years that I'd have to worry that I'm going
Speaker 2: to have to either go back to prison or kill
Speaker 2: me myself, because I wasn't going back to prison, and
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to take off and make my parents
Speaker 2: lose their thirty thousand dollars they'd put up for bond.
Speaker 7: And there were some scary moments because Lorenda was very
Speaker 7: dead set about not going back to prison, and so
Speaker 7: we were very concerned about her health and safety.
Speaker 1: Did she express to you her maybe suicidal idiations that
Speaker 1: if she was going to go back, that was that
Speaker 1: was it.
Speaker 7: Yes, and you know, we would try and talk her
Speaker 7: out of it, but it was a lot of pressure
Speaker 7: on it. And there was one hearing in particular where
Speaker 7: we had just lost around and then the prosecution moved
Speaker 7: to cancel her bond and tether and send her back
Speaker 7: to prison. And we went to court and there was
Speaker 7: a guy there from the Department of Corrections waiting and
Speaker 7: he was he was holding his you know, leg irons
Speaker 7: and waist chain and handcuffs and you know, playing with them, clinking,
Speaker 7: clinking them like the grim Reaper.
Speaker 1: We've heard that Ronnie recant did his allegation many times,
Speaker 1: and he continued to maintain that Lorenda hadn't done this.
Speaker 1: But that still leaves the question why did Ronnie make
Speaker 1: up this story in the first place. It all started
Speaker 1: when Lorenda was in prison for the drug violation and
Speaker 1: Ronnie and Cody were living with their father and stepmother.
Speaker 1: As it came out later, fourteen year old Ronnie had
Speaker 1: been caught in an act of sexual misconduct with a
Speaker 1: young relative, a three year old girl who was also
Speaker 1: living in the house.
Speaker 3: He knew he had done wrong. The little girl told
Speaker 3: on him.
Speaker 2: Ronnie first denied it, then he admitted he did it
Speaker 2: and said he was playing game called babies. So they
Speaker 2: took him to the therapist and had him tell the therapists I
Speaker 2: had done this, you know, lots of times, way years ago,
Speaker 2: and that's why he did it.
Speaker 7: Years later, Ronnie admitted that actually he had learned about
Speaker 7: oral sex from watching some of the movies and magazines
Speaker 7: in his father's porn stash.
Speaker 1: And so how did it come about where they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're going to blame little Renda.
Speaker 8: It's you know how that happens?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, because the stepmother told Ronnie, she said, Ronnie,
Speaker 2: if this happened to you, you won't go to jail.
Speaker 3: Your mom will.
Speaker 2: Get a little bit of time in jail and we'll
Speaker 2: help her with her using her drugs. She'll get six
Speaker 2: months in jail, but I got twenty five to fifty
Speaker 2: years in jail.
Speaker 1: Allegations of child sexual abuse are taken very seriously by
Speaker 1: the courts, But Ronnie had recanted his story multiple times
Speaker 1: to authorities, So why would that not be enough to
Speaker 1: overturn the conviction? As Dave explains, when it comes to
Speaker 1: these kinds of cases, it's not always that simple.
Speaker 7: Even a recantation from the complainant is likely not to
Speaker 7: be enough because there are so many reasons that the
Speaker 7: courts will appoint to. If the prosecutors will point to
Speaker 7: as to why somebody might recant a child sexual abuse allegation,
Speaker 7: it's true, for example, because they're under pressure from family members,
Speaker 7: or because they feel guilty about sending somebody to prison,
Speaker 7: or they think that somebody has been punished enough and
Speaker 7: it's time time to bring them home. And so it's
Speaker 7: just never enough to have the complainant in a child
Speaker 7: sex abuse case wecan't and in fact it wasn't enough
Speaker 7: in this case. Loreinda had gotten nowhere, even though Ronnie
Speaker 7: had vociferously recanted many times. You have to be able
Speaker 7: to corroborate the recantation. You have to be able to
Speaker 7: show why the claim objectively couldn't be true. And so
Speaker 7: we were very lucky in this case that we were
Speaker 7: able to do.
Speaker 8: That, and that was through the bus driver and the
Speaker 8: neighbor boy.
Speaker 7: And the ex boyfriend Dennis book.
Speaker 1: Over the next seven years, Loreinda was granted a retrial
Speaker 1: multiple times, but Calhoun County prosecutor Susan Maladanov objected each time. Finally,
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, the Michigan Innocence Clinic persuaded the state
Speaker 1: Supreme Court to order a new trial for Lareinda, and
Speaker 1: then on May nineteenth, twenty sixteen, the prosecution dropped the charges.
Speaker 1: She was finally free.
Speaker 2: I did end up getting to feel what that athlete
Speaker 2: felt like when they touched that pool. When Dave called
Speaker 2: me and told me the Supreme Court decision is back
Speaker 2: and you're exonerated.
Speaker 7: That was great. I mean, that was euphoork. A lot
Speaker 7: of pressure on her, a lot of pressure on us
Speaker 7: all those years. But to actually be able to complete
Speaker 7: the exoneration, have her cut off that tether that she'd
Speaker 7: been wearing for seven years and be free, it was
Speaker 7: one of the great moments at the clinic.
Speaker 1: Larinda is no longer in touch with Ronnie and Cody,
Speaker 1: and you know, I.
Speaker 2: Do forgive them. They didn't ask me to adopt them.
Speaker 2: I did use drugs, you know, I forgive them, but
Speaker 2: I can't. I just can't forget with the wrecked mine
Speaker 2: and my parents' life.
Speaker 1: In July of twenty seventeen, Loreinda filed a lawsuit against
Speaker 1: Calhoun County seeking damages for her wrongful conviction. The suit
Speaker 1: was settled in twenty eighteen, which allowed Lorenda to put
Speaker 1: her life back together and finally make a new start.
Speaker 2: I work hard, I rest hard, and I play hard.
Speaker 2: I have a dog that I've had for almost fourteen years.
Speaker 2: We're little old ladies together.
Speaker 3: I love to.
Speaker 2: Work on my home, in my yard. I have a garden.
Speaker 2: I have the best neighbors. I have a great boyfriend.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: I dance, a shop, I cooked, I cleaned, I want.
Speaker 2: I played tennis, and I'm sixty three, but in my heart,
Speaker 2: I'm ten. In my heart, I am ten. And I'm
Speaker 2: so grateful to Almighty God for giving me the strength
Speaker 2: to get through it, giving me loving parents and you
Speaker 2: know you have them, and my prison boss and just
Speaker 2: different people that that helped to make a difference. So
Speaker 2: in the end, God showed me that I had more
Speaker 2: strength than I ever knew, and I did persevere. I
Speaker 2: did meddle through it, and I met incredible people because
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to help support the important work the
Speaker 1: Michigan Innocence Clinic is doing, please check out their link
Speaker 1: in our episode description and thank you. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your
Speaker 1: local innocence organizations and go to the links in the
Speaker 1: episode description to see how you can help. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our executive producers Jason Flam, Jeff Kempler, and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer
Speaker 1: Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beal, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
Speaker 1: Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
Speaker 1: production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music is
Speaker 1: by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on all social media platforms at Lava
Speaker 1: for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow
Speaker 1: me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with
Speaker 1: Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with Signal Company Number one